Locked

Everyday, I see the people I love most try to change themselves because they think they aren't good enough. They lock their true selves deep inside of them along with anything that meant something to them but is now not "cool". But I ask, "Who decides who you should be?" I want my friends and anybody else struggling to know that YOU decide. No matter who you are or what you like you are ALREADY "good enough." In fact, you are better, you are you. My favorite quote says it all: "Be yourself, everyone else is already taken." -Oscar Wilde

The chains clink as I cringe in the corner of my cage. With every movement, I can feel the rough, worn edges of my cuffs scrape against my skin. I glance around, desperately trying to see something, anything, but there is only complete blackness. A sigh escapes and I breathe in the rank scent of decay and dust that swirls around my head, kissing my face. It is disgusting. Suddenly, it is too much and all I can think of is escape. In a frantic thought I desperately reach out, but no! My hopes are diminished when my hands push against solid bars; the cage appears to be impenetrable. Yet I know it’s not. It is shrouded in a black fog you created, but if only I could look past it and see my prison, then maybe I would find the flaw, the fault in the bars that would release me and force you to remember. It must exist! I know it does! You cannot keep me here forever; it is against your nature, against whom you are! And yet, the days grow, piling on top of each other until there are too many to remember. Again, the chains clink as I dishearteningly allow my arm to drop to the ground.

Blindness! An intense white has replaced the stark black; someone has opened the door to the tiny room that holds my cell. My eyes slowly adjust to the terror around me and I gag. In the corner, a teddy bear lies slumped, one eye hanging slack and its stomach ripped open, stuffing strewn everywhere. A cello rests on the floor; the once magnificent instrument is rotting. Its strings are loose from abandonment and its shiny brass is dull. Torn, burned, and ruined pages are scattered across the floor. Some are the works of brilliant minds who have spent a lifetime perfecting their ideas. How can you dare to trap them in here, these pages that have taught us so much about ourselves? But the most horrid sight of all is your own words decaying in the dark. Your soul is in these pages; they contain your deepest desires and the truth about yourself. And yet you lock them in this room! Do these pages mean nothing to you? Do I mean nothing to you? You trap me in this little cage, pretending I don’t exist. Maybe you’ve forgotten about me, how else could you have lived so long without me? But finally you have come to face what you’ve done, to remember all those things you’ve tried to forget.

Your face shines bright in the light, but mine is still hidden in the shadows. One step, two steps, three steps closer, I bet you can almost see me. A pause. What, are you afraid? I can see it in your eyes. You don’t want to realize what you’ve done. And yet you bravely take the final step into my world. I wait anxiously for your eyes to adjust to the blackness I’ve known for so long. I stare into your eyes and watch your pupils grow until finally, yes! You see me. Your jaw drops, your eyes grow wide, and your hand shoots to your mouth, perhaps to cover your scream. Because what you see is not what you expected. You do not see an unknown face, a nameless person. You see the face you know best of all. When your eyes open to the truth that I call blackness, you see your own face starring back at you. My face is your face. I am you, the real you. I am whom you are, not whom you’ve tried to change into. I did not throw away my childhood keepsakes because I was too “adult” for them. I did not give up playing the cello because it wasn’t “cool”. I did not stop writing because was “nerdy”. I am not the you that has changed for society. I am truly you, only you. And you locked me up. But finally you have learned I cannot simply disappear. I am you and you are me and we will forever be the same, no matter how anyone tries to change you! So let me out and you will be you again. But I don’t need to tell you this, you see me, you remember, and you know.

The lock clinks as you slide the key in.

Subscribe

Get Teen Ink’s 48-page monthly print edition. Written by teens since 1989.

Join the Discussion

this is truly inspriring. I know how hard it is to be yourself in this world today and how much of a struggle it is. The true self of anyone these days are locked away and you have to pry them open to get at them, which isn't easy. Everyone is always changing to fit in with the "new trend" it isn't worth it. Your true self is always cool and amazing, no matter what anyone says